{"id":976,"date":"2025-04-23T16:52:03","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:52:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/23\/cece-thorington-has-big-game-in-win-over-oakland\/"},"modified":"2025-04-23T16:52:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T16:52:07","slug":"cece-thorington-has-big-game-in-win-over-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/2025\/04\/23\/cece-thorington-has-big-game-in-win-over-oakland\/","title":{"rendered":"Cece Thorington has big game in win over Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Left fielder Cece Thorington\u2019s role is normally restricted to pinch running for the Michigan softball team. Sprinting around the bases for her comparatively slower teammates is typically how she makes her mark on the Wolverines\u2019 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But Tuesday, Thorington started in the batting lineup in Michigan\u2019s win over Oakland and got her chance to make her mark from the batting box. In the bottom of the second inning, she struck. After taking a ball from Golden Grizzlies right-hander Alyssa Balcom, Thorington swung hard, connected with the ball and drove it down the right side and over the wall. It was her first collegiate home run.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPretty amazing,\u201d Thorington said of her home run. \u201cI grew up a Michigan fan, so to get to wear the eight letters across my chest and have a game like that is pretty cool.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was a big step for the freshman compared with her usual role. But that role doesn\u2019t properly illustrate her importance to the team. Despite starting just four games, she\u2019s played in 30 of them and has nine runs in her pinch hitting role. Not to mention that she\u2019s also 4-for-4 on stolen bases.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-1    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p>\u201cShe\u2019s somebody that we\u2019re gonna ask to come off the bench to either be a defensive specialist or a pinch runner in her first year,\u201d Tholl said. \u201cShe\u2019s got some really good tools, and I think that the future is really bright for Cece. \u2026 She\u2019s a great athlete that has an electric arm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Her role on Tuesday wasn\u2019t limited to just a home run, either. Thorington got herself on base in the bottom of the fourth inning with a single to second base. Despite junior second baseman Indiana Langford grounding out to third just a batter later, she managed to advance to second. And though freshman first baseman Lauren Putz\u2019s hit was only a single for her, for Thorington, it brought her home for her second run of the night.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Thorington\u2019s confidence has grown exponentially since the start of the season. Coming from the small high school of Pickney, which enrolls under 700 students, a school as big as Michigan took some adjustment for her. But she\u2019s adjusted to the big stage and is working on perfecting her roles within the team in her freshman year. And as her coaches have placed more trust in her, she\u2019s found more confidence in her game and her ability to make impactful plays for her team. Her teammates have noticed it, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe is a sleeper,\u201d senior right-hander Emerson Aiken said. \u201cShe is quiet confidence. Her name is called, and she gets in there, and she acts like she\u2019s been in the lineup the whole time. She carries herself with a lot of maturity and grit in the way that she plays when she does get those opportunities. It\u2019s awesome to see a freshman class with so much of that and so much confidence, and it is really good looking for the future of Michigan softball.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thorington\u2019s role as a pinch runner might remain her primary one for the rest of the season, but she\u2019s quietly laying the groundwork for a breakout sophomore year. On Tuesday, she proved she has all the tools to do it. All she needs is the opportunity.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"scaip scaip-2    \">\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<aside>\n\t\t<\/aside>\n<p><h3 class=\"jp-relatedposts-headline\"><em>Related articles<\/em><\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Left fielder Cece Thorington\u2019s role is normally restricted to pinch running for the Michigan softball team. Sprinting around the bases for her comparatively slower teammates is typically how she makes her mark on the Wolverines\u2019 games.\u00a0 But Tuesday, Thorington started in the batting lineup in Michigan\u2019s win over Oakland and got her chance to make [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":977,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[515,1092,1036,1094,1093,248],"class_list":{"0":"post-976","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-big","9":"tag-cece","10":"tag-game","11":"tag-oakland","12":"tag-thorington","13":"tag-win"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=976"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":978,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/976\/revisions\/978"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}